An Amazing Lesson

My lesson today was exceptionally good! I've always *wanted* to go to lessons, I really look forward to them. But I know that when I'm on edge like I was today, sometimes lessons are really difficult. I warned Tracey as I walked in that I was a little on edge today. My farrier was supposed to shoe him and didn't, so I was paranoid about his feet. My vet has made it clear that if Rico goes too long without having his toes chopped off, he could suffer a second career ending injury which may turn out to be an ACTUAL career ending injury this time.

I also had a bit of a shock to my entire system because I had graduate school orientation yesterday and it really sunk in what I've gotten myself into. Yikes. I'm trying not to think about it.

Anyway the point of the lesson today was to find out if Tracey thought that Rico and I were ready for not going to embarrass ourselves at Prix St George for the September YY show. I've been so back and forth about this (as is apparent in my last several posts) and decided to leave it up to Tracey. She tends to be a little conservative so I was expecting her to laugh at me.

We started out with some walk pirouettes and a bit of pirouette canter before leaping head first into the pirouettes. I need to end the walk pirouettes a step earlier, since I tend to ride 200 degree turns rather than 180 degree ones. The pirouette canter is funny and I need to practice it a LOT, like more than the actual pirouettes. I tend to ride the pirouette canter like I'm trying to stop a large truck. I lean back, pull back, and slow him down to the point where he starts "rocking" which is what I was going for. Evidently, rocking is NOT collection and I was scolded for it.

The level of collection I need is MUCH less than it feels. It's already been established that I'm completely out of touch with what is going on under me with this horse, so I totally believe her. I need to focus more on activity than collection at this point.

The pirouettes were large, but Tracey said he's clearly on his way to figuring them out and knowing that he had a back injury just two weeks ago, she was very pleased. She even said good a few times during the pirouettes and I'm not going to lie, it was such a surprise to hear someone say "good" while I was doing a pirouette that I definitely got distracted. At one point she said "that was good," about a left pirouette that I then heard "that was terrible" once I did the change.

The left pirouette is tricky, he tends to suck back and I tend to delude myself into thinking it's good. The right pirouette is difficult for me since I tend to lean way off to the side and pull him around. I didn't do that tonight (since the headphones were so tight that if I turned my head too much, they'd come out... I think I will use this at home!) and it was surprisingly good. Tracey thinks the right one is a lot more correct and will eventually be better which was a shock to me! The left has always been so good acceptable!

After the pirouettes we touched on the canter half pass zig zag. Apparently I rush it and don't value bend enough. Once as I slowed down, collected him, and bent, it became quite nice! Tracey wants it to eventually be quicker in the change of bend and the lead change, but she wasn't too annoyed about it once as we fixed it.

Once we were through those two main issues, I asked the big question. "Am I completely stupid to sign up for Prix St George in two weeks?"

NO! She said no! I'm not *completely* stupid then. Basically she said that we were clearly green at the level, but that it's FINE to be green. You have to start somewhere. We're not going to have a clean test, we may not score in the 60s (she said it would depend on my trot work being straight 7s and not totally botching the tempis), but we should have a good day.


I'm shocked and full of joy at the same time! I can't believe we're almost there. Prix St George (despite already having my Silver Medal thanks to Leo the most magnificent horse ever) has been a HUGE goal of mine on Rico. There was always such a big block for that level and now we're SO close.

I have a white back brace on order now (since I don't like putting my black one under my white pants, so not fashionable). Then I'm ordering a shadbelly and signing up for the show tomorrow.


Tomorrow I also start school! As I said, orientation scared the crap out of me but I think I'll be okay. I'll be just fine. Fine. We're all going to be fine. Do you know how much I heard that at orientation? That's probably the reason why I'm a bit anxious. Why did they feel the need to tell us to calm down and why did they use the word fine so damn much??